`Lokis,' la recherche de l'identité et l'énigme fantastique

Spatial and temporal expansion constitute the first signs of transgression from the familiar to the uncanny. Frontiers between reason and madness tend to be abolished by stimulations that change perception and desire. The narrator encounters characters governed by supernatural forces, belonging simultaneously to reason and folly, to man and beast. As they transgress the domain of the ordinary, as analogies among them multiply, they loose their autonomy. As several characters use the same expressions, they cannot be defined by the nature of their language. The narrator, who tries to protect himself against any form of confusion, makes considerable errors in his research on an extinct language. He refuses to acknowledge the fundamental ambiguity of all languages, ambiguities that multiply analogies and become comparable to the dual nature of the characters. Both unite to bring forth the enigma of the fantastic. (In French) (RRH)